Blank
by Azilah
Summary: Marinette has a dress to design but all she has is one hell of a blank and a punny Chat Noir.


**First fic for mlb, here we go**

 **If anything, I'm especially proud of the puns**

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 _ **In which pillows are weapons**_

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Marinette groaned, scrunching up yet another design and threw it into her bin. She watched as it bounced off the overflowing basket and landed on the floor amongst several others. Repressing a frustrated scream, she glared at the small mountain of paper.

 _Oh great, a visual representation of my failure._

Taking a deep breath, she turned back to her sketchbook, pursing her lips. The only sound that could be heard was the ticking of her clock as she stared blankly at the page. She placed her chin in her hands and leaned forward as if being closer would help her think. The ticking continued as if it didn't sense her increasing irritation (which, _of course_ , it didn't – it was a clock), as if the ticking didn't realise that the one thing _ticking_ her off more than her lack of inspiration, was the incessant and loud (she _swore_ it was getting louder) tick tock ticking of the tick tocking clock.

Cursing to herself, Marinette let her head fall onto the desk. She contemplated smashing her face through the table (it would be less painful than trying to draw something right now), before her phone buzzed in her back pocket. Answering it, she muttered out a 'hello'.

"Salut, Marinette! How's it going?"

"Alya, my mind is blank. There is nothing there anymore. No designs, no ideas, no inspiration, no nothing!"

"That was a double negative."

" _Bof_. I'm serious, it's been hours and I've probably killed an entire rainforest with the amount of paper I've wasted!"

"The WWF must hate you."

" _Alya, be serious!_ " Marinette exasperatedly exclaimed, rolling her eyes at her best friend's muffled laughter, "The event is in five days and I don't even know what fabric I want to use, _je suis foutu!_ "

"Maybe you should take a break," Alya suggested "You know, let the idea come to you, instead of forcing one out."

Sighing in defeat, Marinette agreed, muttering out a 'thanks' before saying goodbye and hanging up. She let out another groan as she threw hear head back in frustration, her hands scrunching up her hair.

 _Tap. Tap. Tap._

"Nettie?" Came from a voice above her.

"You can come in if you stop using that awful nickname." Marinette replied, turning her chair around as she heard the sound of her visitor ungraciously landing onto her bed. Glancing upwards, she saw Chat Noir peeking out from the top of the stairs with an impish grin on his face. "Wha–" Before she could even get out one word, she was hit in the face with one of her pillows.

" _Tu enfoir_ _é!_ " Marinette shouted, glaring at the gleefully cackling hero as he swung over the railings. "I'm not in the mood for one of your pillow fights, Chat."

"What's got you so down?" he asked, casually leaning against the desk. Grumbling to herself, Marinette picked the pillow up from the floor and hugged it to her chest.

"There's this fancy dinner thing being held by the mayor, " She began to explain, "I got to the same school as his daughter, and he's invited the families of everyone in our class. There's going to be all sorts of important people, and it would be a fantastic opportunity to show off one of my designs but I can't think of anything! I've been trying to come up with a dress for so long I think my head is going to explode."

"With all that noise you were making, I would've thought you were doing something else in here."

" _Chat!_ " Marinette hissed, whacking him with the pillow " _Not funny!_ "

Still reeling from the force he had been hit, Chat chuckled weakly. "Apologies, I did not realise I was conversing with one so pure of heart and soul."

" _Mon dieu_ , you're such a little shit."

" _Such profanity!_ " He dramatically gasped, clutching his hand to his chest. Marinette took a deep breath. Then she hit him with her pillow again. " _Ow!_ "

"Who knew that the weakness of one of Paris' heroes would be pillows?"

"With the force that _you_ swing them with, I'm pretty sure they can kill."

Marinette rolled her eyes at Chat's teasing form and threw the pillow at him. Laughing, he acted as if he had been shot, and fell back onto her chaise, one arm flung over his forehead.

"This isn't the way I imagined myself to go, you know."

" _Chat._ "

"A hero of Paris defeated! By an angry baker's daughter. I can see the headlines now!" He cried out as he sat up, his arms stretched out in front of him as he pretended to envision it all.

"You're so dramatic."

"It would be a _cat_ astrophe, a _claw_ ful day in Paris. People would say that I wasn't _bready_ to deal with the wrath of someone as _paw_ erful as the _dough_ ter of the Dupain-Chengs!"

Scoffing at his theatrics, Marinette raised an eyebrow at him, "As if a _pillow akuma_ would be powerful."

"Like I said, with the way you wield those things, you'd be a terrifying opponent."

"Oh yes, you were _so scared_ of me earlier." She sarcastically remarked. Chat hummed in agreement, ignoring her tone.

"You could say that I _chat_ myself."

Looking at him in surprise, Marinette burst out into laughter. Chat grinned as she laughed harder, covering her mouth as she snorted. "There's the merry Mari I know."

"Sorry I've been so grumpy, Chat," she said as soon as she had calmed down, smiling apologetically at him "I've just been going through a… _blank_ lately, but more so in the sense that it's wiped out all the good ideas from my head. It's really put me in a mood."

"How bad is this 'blank' of yours?" he asked. She pointed towards the wastepaper basket and he let out a low whistle at the sight.

"That's one hell of a blank," he commented "But I know how talented you are, Marinette, I'm sure all your designs haven't been that bad."

"It's all garbage. I'm going to look like garbage."

"You'll be the pou _belle_ of the ball."

Chat narrowly missed being hit in the face with a sketchbook.

"You're so unhelpful!" Marinette pouted. However, he could see the laughter still dancing in her eyes as the corner of her lip was twitching upwards into a grin. His heart _ached_ with all the fondness and affection he had for this girl – _and perhaps it was something more that he hadn't confessed to himself just yet_ – when suddenly, an idea sprung into his mind.

"Okay, okay," Chat laughed, holding his hands up in surrender, "I'll stop… _if_ you make your dress _Chat Noir_ themed."

Now, the hero expected a few reactions. He expected her to laugh with him, to turn down the idea, maybe even throw something else at him.

"That's… That's actually not a bad idea."

He did _not_ expect that.

Eyes wide, he watched as she ran over to the sketchbook on the floor, a pencil in her hand. Cheeks pink, he watched as she began to draw. Heart stammering in his chest, he tried to ignore the images of _her_ wearing something inspired by _him_. He was torn between excitedly waiting to see the finished product, or wanting to tell her that it was only a joke and that she didn't have to do it (he'd never stop making puns anyway) since he was pretty sure he'd implode at the sight of _Marinette_ wearing a _Chat Noir dress_.

Unaware of the boy's inner turmoil, Marinette grinned as her pencil practically flew across the page. It was as if a dam had burst in her mind and everything was finally falling into place. For a long while, all that could be heard was the ticking of her clock (which didn't seem so irritating anymore) and the scratching of pencil to paper.

"Okay so the design isn't completely finished yet but here!" she excitedly thrust the sketchbook towards Chat "What do you think? I want the Chat Noir stamp of approval!"

Taking the book held out for him, he dazedly looked at the page. He didn't know as much about fashion as she did but he did know more than the average person (he _was_ the son of one of the best designers in Paris) and he knew that what he saw was–

" _Incredible_."

Marinette beamed up at him, her cheeks flushing. Elated by his response, she flung her arms around his neck, which then caused them to fall back to the chaise.

"Thank you, thank you!" she squealed happily "I couldn't have gotten out of my slump without you!"

Chuckling softly, he wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed, "Trust me, this was all you, princess."

Smiling softly, Marinette rolled off him so that she was lying next to him instead. Her thoughts were swimming with ideas and details she could add to her dress, however, looking at the boy on her right, she pushed those thoughts away. _Later_ , she promised herself.

"Hey, Chat?" she asked. Hearing him hum in response, she cupped his right cheek and placed a kiss on the other, "Thank you."

He took the hand that was placed on his cheek and placed a gentle kiss on her palm before intertwining their fingers, "You said that already." He murmured.

"I know, but this one was for brightening my day."

"It was my pleasure, _purrrincess_." He grinned.

"You have been relentless with the puns today," Marinette groaned, the tender moment lost as Chat cackled at her displeased reaction "I'm pretty sure you did five in one go at some point and, let's not forget – _poubelle of the ball_."

"Hey, I liked that one!" Chat snickered, poking her side, causing her to yelp. Marinette laughed and turned her head so it lay on his shoulder.

"Me too, Chaton."

Nudging her softly, his heart melted at the sight of her questioning eyes. "Can I be the first one to see the finished dress?"

"Of course, you silly kitty. It's only fitting."

"I look forward to it, Nettie." Chat tried, and failed, to fight back the laughter bubbling in his throat as he braced himself for the inevitable.

Sure enough, Marinette shoved him off the chaise.

 _Bien s_ _ûr, he only laughed harder_.

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 **Of course the first thing I publish for mlb is marichat. Of course.**

 **I've only used a lil bit of french but feel free to yell at me if any of it is wrong**. **I haven't done a lot of work on slang so any tips would be great (especially since I have exams coming up lol)**

 **EDIT:** please check my profile for the full note but l ong story short: this is a french show and I _will_ be using some french in my fics _however_ I've mainly just used exclamations (and swearing - oops) and I'll add the important translations at the end of the fic, _par exemple :_

 **poubelle = bin/trashcan**

 _now you may appreciate my pun ;P_


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